Year of the Spark: January 4
by Sparky Army
Summary: Hope is fragile. The fourth installment of a years worth of sparky stories.


_We, the Sparky Army, decree 2008 to be the Year of the Spark. We pledge to post a new sparky story or chapter of a sparky story every day from January 1, 2008 to December 31, 2008. Though the Powers the Be have removed Elizabeth Weir from the regular cast of Stargate Atlantis, we feel that she remains an integral part of the show, and that the relationship between her and John Sheppard is too obvious to be ignored. We hope that you, and anyone might happen to read these works, agree. _

_And if that isn't official enough for you, we don't know what is. Seriously, guys, we're just trying to have some fun--and show TPTB that Sparky is the way to go. So sit back and enjoy the 366 stories coming your way!_

Note from the author (Hannah554): I'm so nervous, I had originally wrote fluff for this but then I decided I didn't like it and wrote angst instead, go figure. Hope you all enjoy it!

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**Alone**

_By Hannah554_

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She'd tried to escape from the replicators more times than she'd cared to count and had always ended up back where she'd started. They'd set out to break her will, probing her mind so many times that half the time she didn't know what was real and what wasn't. There was only so long anyone could stand up against that, against the isolation and the loneliness and after all these months they were starting to win.

She'd stopped trying to escape, stopped trying to run because ultimately she knew she would fail. She couldn't do this alone and since alone is exactly what she was she had no choice but to give up that hope. This small room had become her whole world; she could barely remember what it was like outside anymore, having forced herself to forget. If she didn't remember it then she could hide it from the replicators longer, even as her will was breaking, she would not let them have her memories, they were all she had left, the only thing that were hers.

Despite herself she couldn't force herself to let go of the small hope that she kept in the back of her mind, burning like a candle that she would reach for when the dark became too much to bare. John was still out there, as were the rest of Atlantis and while she knew that by now Earth would have all but given up on her, she also knew that her friends never would, John especially.

His 'leave no man behind' mentality that she had come to admire and respect in him would never allow him to just leave her there. Just as with Lieutenant Ford when he had left, John would never stop looking until he had proof she was dead sitting right in front of him. The replicators had taken great pleasure in informing her that a bunch of rogue Asurans had bought into the lie that she was dead and dutifully informed her people.

That had given her more than a moment's despair but John wasn't the type to give up just because a replicator told him she was dead. Ford had almost certainly been killed aboard that ship when it exploded but John had never truly stopped looking for him. Every mission he went on he was still searching for Aiden, hoping that the young lieutenant would jump out of the bushes with his band of merry followers and kidnap him again. Unless John had definitive proof in his hand he would never stop looking for Ford and he'd never stop looking for her. It was all she could hold onto and though she knew the chances of him finding her were small, she couldn't let go of them.

There were so many things that she hadn't done, so many things that in the endless hours alone between mind probing she'd been able to think about. She'd missed so much; being the duty bound leader of Atlantis she had denied herself too many things. She counted everyone on Atlantis as her friends and was sure they felt the same but she had never allowed herself to receive anything from those friendships.

John more than anyone had tried to reach out to her and she'd allowed herself to indulge in that more than with the others. There had been a brick wall between them though, one that she had placed there herself when she'd realised how close she was getting to him. His friendship had been coming to mean too much to her and with his knack for getting himself into trouble off world and occasionally on, she'd protected herself from the loss that she'd felt was inevitable.

He noticed, she knew that but he had never stopped reaching out to her and she had never stopped letting him. Never had she thought that when she did lose him, it would be because she got herself in trouble, in her mind it had always been him Atlantis would lose.

The door opened and she didn't move from where she was sitting on the floor, if they wanted her out of the corner then they'd have to come and get her themselves. She immediately pushed all her thoughts out of her head, all her feelings and all her memories which she wanted more than anything to keep sacred.

Two hands grabbed her am and she was pulled from the floor, dragged into the middle of the room and forced to her knees. She felt the hand go into her head and bit her lip against the pain but as usual it was gone in just a few seconds.

She finally saw the face of the replicator who had come for her today, she'd never seen him before but he seemed to be taking a sick type of pleasure from the whole experience.

"Dr Weir," he said flatly "How are you today?"

She ignored him for the moment looking around at the field she was standing in, miles and miles of nothing but grass in any direction and she faltered momentarily from the reminder of what the world outside her room looked like. When she looked back at the replicator he seemed unable to hide the smug smile on his face, he knew what he was doing.

"A glimpse of your thoughts is more revealing than you know," he told her and she refused to react. "Many people fill your mind but one is more important than the others."

Outwardly she didn't react at all but since he was in her head it didn't really matter.

"John Sheppard."

She faltered again, the thoughts from before he'd entered the room still so prevalent in her mind that she couldn't keep them completely under her control. She hated herself for letting it happen but he got another glimpse of her thoughts.

"Such a strong emotional response," he said sounding rather pleased with himself. "Much more than I would have expected."

There was nothing she could do but stand there and listen. He was telling her everything that she had denied even to herself over the last few years and all she could do was listen and try not to reveal any more of herself to him.

"Do you not think that if he was coming for you he would have done so already?" he asked her and then his face became distorted, morphing into a face far too familiar. She took a step back and gave herself credit for not letting her walls down, for not giving him more than she already had.

"I'm not coming for you," he told her and she focused on the knowledge that it wasn't John, that it was a trick to make her give up, another attempt to break her will.

His face morphed back into the replicator and he smiled smugly at her "I do believe I just find your biggest weakness," he stated and the world around her disappeared as the real world returned along with the pain. The replicator removed his hand from her head and walked out of the room with the guard. She remained on the floor, unmoving and feeling more broken in that moment than she ever had before.

He would come for her, he had to, she wouldn't be able to hold together much longer if he didn't. She wasn't even sure the damage they'd already done was fixable.

"John, please hurry," she whispered to the emptiness.


End file.
